The 6/#9 chord – Mark Knopfler’s Train Chord

Imitating the sound of a freight train whistle seems to be an obligatory part of all blues players’ vocabulary. For this purpose Mark Knopfler often uses a particular chord, a chord that appears on songs like Eastbound Train or Gravy Train (live), but also on the The Bug.

The chord in question is often called a 6/#9 chord (sometimes also denoted as 6/10). Remember, the numbers indicate the interval from the root note, so it is a chord with the 6th scale note added, and the sharp 9th note.

In C the 6th note is an A, the 9th is a D, but here we have a sharp nine, which is a half note higher, a D# (or Eb if you see it as 6/10 chord).

So our C 6/#9 would be (e.g.): C, E, G, A, D#

As a guitar player you probably want to leave out one or the other note (we only have 4 left-hand fingers), so we might get e.g. : C, G, A, D#

The following diagrams shows how to play these notes.

as tab:

or as chord chart:

Move the chord to the 14th fret position, and you will get the E 6/9+ (Eastbound Train) or – one octave lower – to the 2nd fret (The Bug)

In Gravy Train this chord appears as A 6/9+, which is at the 7th fret posiotion.

Here is a sound clips with the ‘train excerpt’ from the mentioned songs:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

2 thoughts on “The 6/#9 chord – Mark Knopfler’s Train Chord”

Hi, to me this chord sound also to a 7/9 one : if you take for example the chord used in Eastbound or Bug, It has the following notes : E C# G B. So it also could be used as A 7/9 (in a different order, A 7/9 is : A C# G B, and eventually E) So the train chord on the degre 1, is also very similar (by the notes) to the 7/9 of the degre 4. Well, when I play it, it sounds OK to me with the 2 chords behind

Archives

Search

Meta

By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information

This site uses cookies to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website (reading, navigating, scrolling down,...) without changing your cookie settings or if you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this. This site use cookies to personalise ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about the use of our site and devices with our social media, advertising and analytics partners.